I love surfing. And I would try to surf anywhere. But one fateful day, I went surfing on the West Side of Oahu. I had trouble in the water with people of dark brown skin, who said this was no place for White people (I’m light skinned Mexican) and when I got out of the water, my car had been broken into, wallet stolen and the car thrashed. Yes, I experience racism in a place where I should have experienced peace and harmony. This is what the truth is, it happens against everyone. The worst placer though, is Santa Cruz. White Privileged Surfers will slash your tires, break into your cars and attack you with knives in the water. The second worst place is Palos Verdes, in SoCal. Lunada Bay is the worst. There are a couple others, like just south of Carmel, San Francisco, and Aptos, strong liberal cities. They are the most intolerant and bigoted people in California. And I have surfed all over the world in a dozen countries and all over the USA. Even surfed in South Africa. The only thing I had to worry about there was sharks.
I think that place on Oahu is called Makaha. Full of locals who will kill you for looking cross eyed. The cops in Hawaii are just as bad as the criminals also. When I was there some of the biggest dope dealers were the police. The place is beautiful, but I wouldn’t go back there. It’s a bad scene.
Despite Californians loving to think of themselves as post-racial and not burdened with the old racial hangups of back east, I found it riddled with strange racial subcultures that I just did not understand and could not navigate successfully. It was nowhere more prevalent than the beach towns, and especially on the beaches themselves. I’m not surprised.